


For the Boys

by ReaperWriter



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Non-magical AU, Singing, WWII, uso
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lucas Sisters, who aren't really sisters, are part of a camp show USO troop in 1942.  Ruby is in it for the adventure, Mary Margaret is passing the time while her husband's at war, and Emma just wants to support her son, who's back Stateside with Granny.  Archie is leading the band and well known torch singer Regina Mills is headlining, when Troop Director Mr. Gold brings on Killian Jones, a British Vocalist who lost a hand and a lot more in the early days of the war.  Will he and Emma find a beautiful new harmony together?  Or will the pressures of war and their own demons bring them to discord?</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Boys

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters, vaguely my universe. No infringement intended.

London, October 1942

“Five, Six, Seven, Eight,” called Archie, the band leader as the intro played. An audience of three sat in the deserted music hall the USO troop had taken over for a week to rehearse new material before going out back out on tour.

“He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way. He had a boogie style that no one else could play. He was the top man at his craft, but then his number came up and he was gone with the draft.” The three women, known by the stage name of The Lucas Sisters, sang. “He's in the army now. He's blowin' reveille. He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of company B.”

“Hold up,” Archie called, cutting the band off. “Ruby, you’re just a little flat on the harmony. Mary Margaret, watch the lyrics on that last line, its boogie woogie, not oogie boogie. And Emma, try to smile. We’re supposed to be cheering people up, not depressing them.”

The not quite sisters nodded, and prepared to go again, when Mr. Gold, the manager of the tour, came out with a foul look on his face and whispered something to Archie. The mild mannered band leader nodded. “Ladies, take ten.”

“I wonder what that’s about,”   Mary Margaret Nolan said. She and the other two girls headed down the proscenium stairs and grabbed seats in one of the back rows of the theater.

“Beats me,” Ruby, the only actual Lucas of the three replied. “When isn’t Gold in a bad mood?”

“When Belle smiles at him?” Emma Swan replied. Belle French was the sweet girl who ran the stage door cantina at the troop’s shows, serving up hot donuts and warm smiles. It was a not so secret secret that Mr. Gold was enamored on Miss French.

Emma herself didn’t feel like smiling. They had been on tour for a solid six months, and she missed her son, Henry, who was back stateside with Ruby’s Granny Lucas. Emma had been sending most of her $100 a week pay check back to the older woman to pay for Henry’s upkeep and put aside money for his college.

“At least I can finish my letter to David,” Mary Margaret said, pulling the paper and pencil out of her pocket. It seemed like the petite brunette was always writing another letter to her husband, who was currently serving as a lieutenant with a unit preparing for a major push. Rumor had it, they would be going to North Africa soon.

Ruby sighed at her. Her own boyfriend, a young doctor named Victor Whale, was attached to a medical unit up in Scotland. While she seemed to be crazy about the man when they rarely got the see each other, she wasn’t keeping up the same rate of fevered correspondence.

Emma glanced up to the stage and was surprised to see a man she didn’t recognize, talking to Archie. He was tall, with dark hair, and he moved with a fairly self-assured swagger. Her eyes noticed that his left arm seemed to be in a sling. She was about to point him out to the girls when Archie caught her eye.

“Emma,” he called. “Come here a minute.”

She got up, feeling her friends eyes on her as she made her way back on stage. Up close, she saw the sling ended in a fairly obvious stump, and that the man’s eyes were vividly blue.

“What’s up?” she asked. Archie smiled at her, looking at their heights and then nodding to himself.

“This is Killian Jones,” he said. “Killian is joining the troop as a male vocalist, and I need someone to do some duets with him. I think your range will work best.”

“Why not Regina?” she asked. Regina Mills was a torch singer, older than Emma and her friends, and the uncontested queen of the troop.

“When has Regina ever shared the spotlight?” Archie asked, quietly. He had a point there. “Killian, this is Emma Swan. She’s one of the Lucas sisters.”

“Married?” the man asked in an accent thick as sin.

“No,” she replied, shortly. The name thing threw people when they first met the girls. Granny had raised Ruby after her parents passed away when she was a baby. When Mary Margaret was likewise left an orphan, Granny had kindly taken in her granddaughter’s best friend. And when a broke and pregnant Emma had come to the small boarding house looking for work, she too had been folded into the family. The fact the girls could harmonize beautifully and were just starting to make a name on the East Coast when Pearl Harbor happened had been a coincidence.

“Let’s give it a go, okay, Emma?” Archie said. “How about ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’?”

Emma nodded and walked up to the microphone, finding herself facing Mr. Jones.

“Five, six. Five, six, seven, eight,” Archie counted off, as the band kicked in.

“I wrote my mother, I wrote my father, and now I’m writing you too,” Killian sang, in a tenor that was smoky and smooth. “I’m sure of mother, I’m sure of father, and now I want to be sure, very, very sure of you.”

Emma joined in, her contralto complimenting his voice as they harmonized. “Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me, anyone else but me, anyone else but me.”

They continued through the song, ending to applause from Ruby, Mary Margaret, Belle, and the stage manager Marco.

“Great,” Archie said. “I like it.”

“You’re quite good, Swan. We make a good team.” Emma smiled for a moment, before he continued. “If we can just get you to look less dour. Who died, lass?”

“None of your business, Jones,” she said, the smile disappearing. She turned to Archie. “Are we done of the afternoon? I think I’m coming down with something.”

Archie looked at her, sadly. “Sure, go ahead, you and the girls call it a day. I need to run through Killian’s repertoire with the band, then try Regina’s new set.”

Without a word, Emma turned and headed off stage to the dressing room the women performers shared. What she wanted was an aspirin and a good night’s sleep.

****

Within a week, they were all bundled back up and heading back out on rotation. Their first stop was the RAF Airbase at Dawes Hill, where the 8th Army Air Force was stationed. A standard stop over was three days. They would arrive and the stage crew would work erecting the stage set up and equipment. Led by a foreman, whose name was Leroy, but who was usually just called Grumpy, they would get everything up and set to go. Then Marco would do the sound checks and run the electrical.

On day two, the performers would do a dry run in the morning, followed by a couple of hours of meet and greet, glad handing the troops and visiting any wounded that might be around. Then, the show would start around three. The Lucas Sisters were on first, doing four or five numbers. After they were done, Killian would now take the stage and do two solo bits, before bringing Emma back on to duet with him. After they finished, Regina Mills, who had done some film work and was the best known of them all, would close the show.

After the show, if there was somewhere where they could be and observe black out, they would stay, speaking to everyone for as long as people asked. Then on day three, they would get up and help strike the set, clean up the cantina, and load up for the next stop on the road.

Killian Jones had been pleasantly surprised that dour Emma Swan from rehearsals disappeared entirely at an actual show, replaced by smiling, happy Emma Lucas. He was amazed by the consummate professional as she signed autographs and posed with soldiers for pictures with their little brownie cameras. And he was touched when they would visit a ward and she would speak softly and kindly to the worst cases, the badly burned and the worse amputees than him.

Usually, if there was a pub with rooms near base or wherever they were performing, they would billet them there. If not, space and cots were found on base. It was also a rule that you caught sleep as you could on the road, either by train or by bus.

The difference in Emma was that as soon as they were off, she shut down. Her face went grave and her eyes far off, and she didn’t speak to anyone much, outside her sisters. Ruby was effusive and just as happy to talk as play cards with the band and the set crew. Mary Margaret wrote a lot of letters, but still found time to ask how he was and did he need anything. He had caught her glancing at his wrist once or twice, but she was too nice to ask.

It probably didn’t help that Emma clearly didn’t get along with Regina, their headliner. He didn’t know what had fallen out between those two and he sure as hell wouldn’t be the one to ask. So he spent most of his time with the band: Archie, the band leader and clarinet player; Jefferson, the pianist; Billy, the drummer; and a couple of other guys.

At night, well…nights were the worst. In the second week on the road, he woke up billeted double with Jefferson, screaming. The other man had shaken him awake, then rolled over and gone back to sleep quickly. Instead of trying, he dug around in his bag for the flask of what he lied to himself was medicinal rum, and walked downstairs into the public house’s bar. It was dark as pitch in most of the room with the black-out curtains, but the fire was banked low, and in the gloaming light, he found her, wearing men’s pajamas and a threadbare old dressing gown, sipping a glass of water.

“Evening, lass,” he said, softly, so as not to startle her. She looked up at him again with the same haunted eyes he had seen before. “Do you mind?” He gestured with his stump to the other chair by the fire.

She shook her head. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Demons,” he said, and he saw her eyes dart to his hand. She was canny, that way, was Miss Swan. “You?”

“Something like that,” she said. Her eyes drifted over to the fire grate. “Missing people tonight, is all.”

He was quiet for a minute, understanding that feeling. “Anyone you want to talk about?”

He didn’t expect her to say anything. Really, more than anything, he expected her to get up and leave. He was surprised when her voice, soft and strained said, “I have an eight year old son, back in the states.”

He digested that piece of information, carefully. “I thought you weren’t married, lass?”

She laughed bitterly. “I’m not. I was…well, I was very young, and I had been an orphan my whole life. I met a guy, older than me, but he seemed to have it together, you know?” She sighed, and he felt his heart tug a little. He did know the type, probably far better than she could imagine. “He made me a lot of pretty promises, and I let things go about as far as they could. And then one day, he disappeared, leaving me alone. I didn’t know I was expecting until he was long gone. Mrs. Lucas, Ruby’s grandma, she took me in and gave me a job. Gave us a home, me and Henry.”

He was silent, letting her run down. Somewhere deep inside, a part of him he thought dead, something stirred. Anger on her behalf, for the man who would treat her that way. And sad understanding.

“And I have no idea why I am telling you this.”

“I’m sorry, Emma,” he said. “That can’t have been easy.”

He thought he saw the ghost of a smile, there in the dim light. “It wasn’t. And I miss him. I know he’s safe and loved with Granny while we’re on the road, and the money is good. Really, really good, and it will mean I can give him a future. But…”

“He’s like a fiber, gone from your heart.” His voice was soft when he said it, but she went stock still. “Like someone has ripped a little piece away and you can’t get it back.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice even softer. They sat in silence for a while, and he passed the flask to her, watched her face crinkle when she took a sip, feeling the rum burn down to her core. It seemed to give her a little bit of courage. “Killian…what happened to…you know…”

“My hand?” he asked. No one had inquired of him, and he was surprised how comfortable two strangers sitting in the dark could be with each other. “Are you sure you want to know, lass? It’s not a pretty story.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, softly, and handed his flask back to him. He shook his head, and thought she could see that in the firelight.

“Do you know about Dunkirk?” He heard the soft gasp. “My brother Liam and I, we joined the army young. Our ma was dead and our father had skint out when we were young. Liam was older than me, and practically raised me. He went in at 18, while I stayed with a cousin, then I joined when I was old enough. We were good at it, and he became a Lieutenant pretty quickly. I was a corporal by the time the Jerries started trying to take the whole damn continent, and I went with him as his aide.”

She didn’t utter a word. But he could tell she was listening. “We never stood a chance. Our position was overrun and we began the retreat, but they just kept picking us off. Liam and I were at the back of our lines, trying to cover the lads, when the planes strafed us. Liam…I held him, as he went. I didn’t even know my hand was shot to hell until we got to the beach. It was already festering, so the doctor had to take it.”

“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right, love.” Killian smiled, sadly. “War is war.”

That seemed to snap her out of her daze. “And tomorrow will come early. We should try to sleep.”

“Aye,” he said. “Good night, lass.”

“Good night, Killian.”

****

He ended up sitting on the train with Mary Margaret a few days later, headed up to do a show at one of the Northern bases. “Emma told me,” she said, softly, not looking up from her letter. “I hope that’s all right.”

He took a breath and let it out. It wasn’t a secret, and he figured any of the troop with a half good knowledge of the British war effort could figure it out. “It’s fine, lass.”

“Did she tell you?” The question gave him a moment’s pause.

“About her lad?” he asked. “Yes, she did. It must be hard for her.”

“And about Graham?” This time the smaller woman with the black curls looked up at him.

He searched his memory. Her lad’s name was Henry. “Is Graham the boy’s father?” he asked.

For a moment, he thought Mary Margaret wouldn’t answer. Then she shook her head slightly. “Graham was a man Emma met three years ago. He was on the police force of the town we all come from, but he wanted to make more money, save up to ask her to marry him. He loved her and Henry.”

“Did?” He was afraid he knew where this was going.

“Graham joined the Navy. He was at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii.” Mary Margaret paused, and then looked up the train car where Emma sat starring out the window while Ruby painted her nails. “Emma cared about Graham, but she wasn’t really in love with him, not yet. Maybe if this war…well, she felt guilty as hell about it. Blamed herself for his going. I think she’s more in love with the idea of Graham than she was with him.”

He nodded. It explained why she looked so haunted. It was one thing to miss a son, living in relative safety. It was another to lose someone you loved, or could have loved. “I know that feeling.”

Mary Margaret gave him a sweet, sympathetic smile. “I hope I never do.”

“Me too, lass. Me too.”


End file.
